Newly independent Rep. Justin Amash, the only congressional Republican to have publicly argued that President Donald Trump has engaged in impeachable conduct, told CNN that high-level party officials have thanked him behind closed doors for his stance on impeachment proceedings against Trump.
“I get people sending me text messages, people calling me, saying ‘thank you for what you’re doing’,” Amash told CNN’s Jake Tapper in a wide-ranging interview on “State of the Union” Sunday. “They’re not saying it publicly. And I think that’s a problem for our country, it’s a problem for the Republican Party, it’s a problem for the Democratic Party when people aren’t allowed to speak out.”
Amash, who announced Thursday he was leaving the GOP, said that he has had problems with the Republican Party “for several years,”and that he would leave even if Trump were not president. “I don’t think there is anyone in there who could change the system,” Amash said.
CNN’s interview with Amash comes days after he announced in a Washington Post op-ed, “Today, I am declaring my independence and leaving the Republican Party.”
“No matter your circumstance, I’m asking you to join me in rejecting the partisan loyalties and rhetoric that divide and dehumanize us. I’m asking you to believe that we can do better than this two-party system — and to work toward it,” he wrote. “If we continue to take America for granted, we will lose it.”
Amash didn’t mention the President by name, but his decision to abandon the party comes after months of escalating criticism not just of Trump but of his own colleagues for their failure to hold the President to account, specifically for the actions detailed in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the 2016 election and its aftermath, CNN noted.
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